Borges on Boswell and Dr. Johnson

Perhaps Boswell simply felt it as an aesthetic necessity that to better showcase Johnson, there should be a very different character alongside him. Something like in the novels of Conan Doyle: the mediocre Dr. Watson makes the brilliant Sherlock Holmes stand out even more.

Thus, we have, in that book, the pompous sort of character Boswell makes himself out to be.

The NYRB has excerpted this from “Class 10: Samuel Johnson as Seen by Boswell. The Art of Biography. Johnson and His Critics. Monday, November 7, 1966.”